Grand Theft Auto V Trailer Impressions

The GTA V trailer is out. If your pants are still dry, that is because you haven't seen it yet. Please do so before reading any further (we've even embedded it for you).

Features we can make out from the trailer:

The (main?) protagonist seems like a middle-aged white guy, who just moved to California "because of the weather". He tries to move away from a life of crime but obviously that didn't work out. Bank robberies seem to be a focal point in the story, which makes sense of the money-themed logo. We're unsure if we'll be able to control multiple characters at this point, as the trailer is definitely confusing in that area.

The game seems to run on an much-improved RAGE engine, similar to the one used in Max Payne 3. The AI also took a turn for the best, with some great-looking interactions in the trailer. For example, a couple of girls jogging stare at your ass as you pass them by.

Dogs in a Grand Theft Auto game. For a long time, animals and children were when Rockstar drew the line with Grand Theft Auto. we guess they saw the public's favorable reaction with animals being slaughtered for the most part of Red Dead Redemption and decided it was time to include them in their flagship series. We absolutely cannot wait to run over black bears in our SUV in a Mount Chilliad trail... Because if they included dogs, you can rest assured they included the entire animal kingdom as well.

The ability to work out and gain/lose muscle seems to be back, if the outdoor gym seen in the trailer is any indication. This was a well-liked feature in San Andreas, for most part, especially because it allowed users to somewhat customize their character.

Convertible cars!

Golfing (full courses vs just a driving range in IV), hiking, night clubbing (back from The Ballad Of Gay Tony) and yoga could be playable activities.

Mount Chilliad is back, along with freeways!

The game seems to take place in the same universe as GTA IV, judging by its brands (e-cola is one we noticed).

The recession seems to be in full-effect, judging by the "foreclosure" sign put in front of a house, and various other hints.

A realistic Los Santos that looks to be about the same size as IV's Liberty City. Will the game include the entire San Andreas state? If Jets are any indication, it will. But again, we may have to settle with Los Santos + its surrounding areas.

Silencers seem to make their much-anticipated GTA debut.

Jet skis, zeppelins, fighter jets, commercial jets all seem to be controllable. Is GTA back to over-the-top fun? We certainly hope so.

Phil's Impressions:

I was blown away by the level of detail the updated RAGE engine provides. I expected it to look a little bit like a watered-down Max Payne 3 (due to the sheer size of the game) but it looks like Rockstar pulled off top-of-the-line visuals in a sandbox environment. Really impressive. The city looks incredibly colorful, and I certainly hope we get to play around with the entire fictionalized state of San Andreas. Multiple elements hint to it: we get to see shots of the country-side and Mt. Chilliad, there are freeways in the game and the jet planes are back. What would be the point of having planes and freeways if you couldn't fly or drive from city to city?

My instinct tells me that Rockstar left the other cities (San Fierro and Las Venturas) out of the trailer on purpose, and that future trailers will center around them. After all, they can't show us everything right from the start.

George's Impressions:

There were plenty of emotions that ran through my body, tingling through my bones as I watched the 1:24 of pure awesomeness that was thrust through my eyeballs and into my brain just moments ago, when I first watched the (first) trailer for Grand Theft Auto V. A lot of those emotions are hard to put into words or any legible thoughts, but I'll try my best. In actuality, it might be fair to speculate about anything at this point, but hey, we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't at least speculate A LITTLE BIT. Rockstar did a fantastic job of giving us just enough, just the tip (of the iceberg) if you will, in regards to what we should expect in GTAV. We saw for the first time in the GTA universe a dog, blimps, highways, and maybe most importantly, incredible graphics.

While what's new in this game might turn out to only be details or minute changes, we can honestly say that what we've seen so far looks incredibly polished. There has been speculation that the main character is Vice City's Tommy Vercetti, that there are multiple characters, more cities than just the Los Santos we saw in the trailer and so much more. Fact is, we don't know any of the characters, or anything other than what we can speculate from what we've seen in just under a minute and a half. We don't even have a release window. But that's okay. Because I can already tell that whatever it ends up being, it's going to be awesome. Rockstar gave us just enough for us to keep wanting more. And we'll be holding our hands out in anticipation until they give us a bigger piece to the puzzle. The hype meter was at capacity, but I can say with certainty that they delivered.

I would assume Rockstar would have gotten Liotta for Vercetti again. He was my fav character, so even if there is a voice swap, I'd be down. I think it's safe to say this jumped to top of my list of anticipated games.

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